Multimedia messaging service (MMS) is a new global messaging standard that enables a wide range of different media elements, including text, color pictures, animations, audio samples, and video clips. MMS promises a dramatic increase in messaging capabilities that will enrich user experience and create a major new source of revenue for network operators as well as service providers and enterprises. However, If MMS is deployed in B2E (Business-to-Enterprise) and B2C (Business-to-Customer) applications to support mobile employee and consumers, there are two requirements for this usage. The first one is that some small businesses need a simple way to send multimedia messages (hereinafter referred to as “MMS messages”) to the mobile users. Another requirement is that an end-to-end solution is needed for large enterprises to provide a high security message solution for enterprise applications. However, the current MMS infrastructure can't meet these two requirements. In addition, wireless LAN is becoming more and more popular in an enterprise, so when an employee is at office, sending and receiving MMS via wireless LAN (WLAN) is a better solution than via telecom network (such as Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), and so on) for enterprise because the performance of the solution is very good and its cost is very low.
FIG. 1 shows a general view of the MMS architecture, in which the most important component is a MMS Center (or MMS Gateway) 102 including two subsystems: an MMS server 104 and an MMS relay 106. The MMS server is responsible for storing and handling incoming and outgoing messages by means of a message storage 108. Associated with the MMS server is the MMS relay, which is responsible for transferring messages between different messaging systems. Because MMS is a message store/forward system, MMS messages have to be stored and forwarded by the MMS Center owned by a telecom operator when enterprise users communicate with the backend system (MMS applications 112) with a multimedia messaging user device (hereinafter referred to as “MMS user device”) via the MMS channel.
Therefore there is a potential security problem in this kind of systems since it is not an end-to-end solution for enterprise mobile applications. Another problem is the interface between the MMS center and enterprise applications. Currently different MMS centers provide different APIs, which brings some troubles for service providers to connect those different operators. Furthermore, if an enterprise wants to connect to an operator's MMS center, it has to sign a contract with the operator to follow the operator's price and security policy. Maybe this also brings some inconvenience for enterprises.